I Resent How Relieved People Are With My Weight Loss

I recently lost weight. I don’t know how much, but I would guess around 40 or 50 pounds. I went from wearing stretchy clothes in a size 18-20 to clothes in a size 10 or 12, so however many pounds that might be. I stayed the size of a person who could still be called “fat” by ill-meaning people when they are mad at you for other reasons.

I decided to lose weight to be healthier, which I’ve said and tried before but now I’m middle-aged and all of the old reasons to lose weight — to feel more attractive, to be more accepted, to buy better clothes — have become sidebars, also-rans. Now I want to fight off death, and I guess losing weight was one way I thought maybe I could do it.

My whole life I have struggled with my weight. I was just 8 years old whenI found out I was not the same size as my friends when I overheard someone say, “Poor thing, with all her skinny little friends. That must make her feel awful.” It had never occurred to me to feel awful, but from then on, it always occurred to me. I thought about my weight and thought about the person I would be if I wasn’t this fat person anymore. I’ve obsessed over food and danced in my living room with both Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons and this other man called the Fitness Marshall. I did step class with Susan Powter, joined Aqua Fit classes at the gym, worked out with exercise balls, did Pilates and belly dancing and spin classes. I’ve cycled marathons on stationary bikes.

I don’t know what I weighed through all of that but I do know I really hated myself a whole lot all the time. I hated my calves for not fitting into knee-high boots, and I hated all of the women who could zip themselves into them so carelessly. I hated my arms and my stomach and my ass and my breasts, even if I wore low-cut tops to show off my cleavage so that no one would look at the rest of me.

Now that I’ve lost weight, I thought I would stop thinking about it. After all these years, I thought the goal would be to just take that one thing off my list — like “check, now think about your empty bank account instead” or something. But it’s not true. I still think about it every day because the people in my life talk about it every day. “Look at you, wow you’re half your size!” one friend screamed when she saw me at the grocery store. “Oh my God, what have you been doing? You’re wasting away!” another gleefully clapped at a party. “Are you intermittent fasting/taking Ozempic/doing a vegan diet?” I’m getting asked all the time about what I eat.

Everyone is mostly happy for me, even though I did not ask if they were happy for me. People I haven’t seen in a while look at me like, “Phew, she’s getting smaller,” so relieved that I’m fitting into a seat at a party I didn’t know I’d been invited to. Some people want me to “keep going,” and these are the same ones who used to say, “You are so confident for a woman of your size.” Unprompted. Obviously unprompted.

People seem proud of me, prouder than they’ve been of anything else I’ve ever done in my life. Prouder of my new cheekbones that poke out a bit or my ass that feels less obscene than my original ass. Prouder than anyone has ever been of me for anything I’ve done. Raising four kids on my own, for instance. This smaller ass takes the cake I’m not supposed to eat.

The thing is I walk around in this newer body but inside I still want to be allowed to like the girl from before. I really liked her. I didn’t know everyone was so sad for her. I thought my personal little war with my stomach and calves and thighs was being fought between me and me; I didn’t know that everyone was watching and waiting for someone to win. No one talked about my weight until some of it was gone, like how everyone waits to gossip about that one jerk at the party until they go to the bathroom.

When I was bigger, I was sometimes sad but mostly joyful. I was busy being a mom and being loved by my sons, who never thought about my body or needed to have an opinion about it. They were happy enough just getting Chinese takeout on a Friday night and watching The Lord of the Rings extended edition. Sitting cross-legged around our big coffee table and eating our Shanghai thick noodles, our beef and broccoli, our spring rolls. Crab wontons.

The truth is that when people tell me how proud they are of this new body, only the bad memories of my bigger body come back. I blush to think they saw me as this tragic person. I get scared sometimes and wonder what will happen if my weight comes back. I have dreams where I have turned back into the me from before and my jeans won’t button and my bras won’t fit and there’s nothing I could do. No walking or biking, no swimming or yoga, nothing. In my dreams, I’m still the girl who went to the movies with friends and couldn’t pay attention because I was thinking about my waist fat touching their arms or my thighs spreading out to their thigh space. These friends never said anything, but now I know. We all knew. I didn’t fit then, and maybe I won’t even fit now. In my jeans or in my seat or in a kayak. This girl from before will always come back. She would come back because the new version was just a visitor.

Everyone loves the visitor. But it seems no one really loved the woman from before.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible, she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.